


All of my days

by evilythedwarf



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:26:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Established SQ. Together and with 2 children, their lives seem, if not ideal, then pretty damn good, but they are still hunted by the past, no matter how well they try to hide it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I.  
Snow makes an event out of it, of course. Emma complains that it’s just some prom pictures, and who even gets photographs developed these days anyway, but she and Regina get roped into it anyway.

Henry throws them under the bus and saves himself, insists that he and his friends only have so much time left together before they all leave for college and Regina had gotten misty eyed and let him go, and Emma really doesn’t know why she ever thought Regina was the disciplinarian in their little family unit.

When Neal was born, Snow and David and, well, everyone else, pretty much, was too busy trying to keep their town from collapsing to take pictures, and it wasn’t until the birth of their second daughter, Ruthie, when things were more settled, more calm, and Ruby’s present had been a new camera that Snow had realized they didn’t have any solid, physical memories of his early days as a baby.

Of course, they didn’t have many of those of Emma either, but that was a wound Snow had already dealt with and couldn’t stand to have reopened. Still, that’s when she became a scrapbook enthusiast. A scrapbook fiend, Emma calls her, which is still nicer than Regina’s choice words for this little hobby of hers.

They sit together on the couch, far closer than necessary, their thighs touching and their shoulders an inch apart, and Snow sits across the coffee table, an envelope in her hands.

“Ready?” she asks, grinning, excited, like they haven’t all seen these pictures a million times before. Like Emma hasn’t caught Regina scrolling through them late at night, when it’s 15 minutes till curfew and Henry still isn’t home and they are both wondering where the hell the last few years have gone.

“Ready,” Emma says, because this is her mom, still, and if this is what it takes to make her happy.

Outside, David is playing catch with Neal.

Attempting to play catch with Neal, more like it. The poor boy has his father’s athletic build and none of his mother’s quick reflexes. He is a quiet, shy boy who often trips on his own feet. Emma adores him and Regina tends to coddle him, and he delights in their attention. His father, however, doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with the boy.

Really, David would do better teaching Ruthie, who is tiny and slight and so fast. She can run miles around them all, unlike Neal, who is not going to be joining Little League or whatever it is 6 year olds do anytime soon. Ruthie is not interested in playing catch though, and she is now hosting a tea party up in her room.

Snow lays all the pictures on the table, carefully, almost symmetrically, in neat little piles and Emma has to fight the urge to mess them up.

“These are from your house,” Snow says, pointing at the first column. “These are the ones Joey’s parents’ took,” she says, tapping at the second one. Then she grins, almost maniacally. “I got the ones from the party,” she practically squeals, clutching a white envelope. “Astrid got them for me.”

Emma feels Regina tense next to her, and she wraps a hand around hers.

“You could have told us,” Emma complains preemptively.

“I wanted it to be a surprise!”

Regina sighs and looks sideways at Emma, and there’s no need for words right now, when they’re both thinking the exact same thing.

“Hand them over,” Regina says, extending the hand that’s not linked with Emma’s.

Snow looks hesitant for a second, but then she hands over the envelope and Regina tears it open, probably on purpose. She takes the pictures out and holds them in front of her, in front of them, so they can stare at them together.

Henry.

Henry is so tall these days, and where he got his size is anyone’s guess, but he towers over most of his friends and both his moms need to look up when they talk to him now. He’s so grown up, and such a little boy still. One of the pictures shows him with his tie around his head and his shirt untucked, and laughing. To see him laughing, carefree, is a gift, and Emma doesn’t need to look at Regina to know she feels the same.

Emma and Regina sort through the pictures, carelessly setting aside those that don’t show their boy, with their joined hands squeezing every time they see him. They miss him already, even though he’s still here, even though they can still see him every single day, even though he kisses each of their foreheads every night before he goes up to sleep.  
Snow sits and watches them, and wrings her hands as she looks down at the discarded photographs. And yeah, they’re pretty much ignoring her.

“I’m going to go check on the girls,” she tells them, but their eyes don’t leave the photo.

“He’s so handsome,” Regina says softly, her index finger tracing the shape of his face. It’s a lovely picture, Henry looking to the side, his bright eyes sparkling and a small smile on his face.

“He is,” Emma agrees.

He has her chin, definitely, and now he’s lost all the baby fat he had when she first met him his face is sharper, but he’s still him, all grown up, yes, but still Henry. Unfortunate nose and everything, but Emma is convinced he can still grow into it.

They look at the pictures, lingering, until they hear crying coming from upstairs. They stand up, almost tripping each other, but by the time they make it to the stairs Snow is coming down with a child in each hand.

“Momma!” Olivia cries when she sees them and it’s unclear who she means, but it doesn’t matter, she shakes off Snow’s hand and runs towards them and they both hold her as she begins to cry again, and they cocoon her in between them, and while Regina is busy whispering comforting words in her ears, Emma looks up at her mother. What the hell? she mouths.

“Ruthie would like to apologize,” Snow says, not meeting her eyes.

“I would not,” the child says, shaking her head and hiding behind her bangs. Unlike her older siblings, Ruthie has her mother’s dark hair and insists on getting it cut exactly like her, something that Snow finds deeply flattering and Emma finds deeply weird.

“Ruth!” Snow scolds.

The girl looks mutinous, but a stern look from her mother and she’s reluctantly apologizing for whatever it is she’d done, she doesn’t go into specifics and Snow doesn’t press the issue.

“Go upstairs, Ruth,” she says, when the child has finished. “To your sister’s bedroom, not yours,” she adds, which is, over all, a smart thing, as it wouldn’t be punishment, really, to be sent back up to her own room, with all her games and toys and dress up things.

Being sent up to Emma’s room though, Emma’s unused bedroom, which Snow and David insist on keeping for her out of some sentimental sense of obligation, even though she’s never spent a night there, even though the only ones who’ve ever used it are Henry and Olivia, is much, much worse. It’s a lovely room, with pale green walls and ample windows, but it’s… bare, and lacking all the amenities little girls find essential.

Ruthie huffs and stomps her little feet all the way up the stairs, and they hear her angry “It’s not fair!” before she slams the door closed, making her mother wince.

“Drama queen,” Emma mutters.

“Wonder where she gets it from,” Regina deadpans. She’s still cradling Olivia against her chest, even though the little girl has long stopped crying. They baby her, they do, but it’s hard not to, when their son is seconds away from leaving them, and it seems like only yesterday Olivia was being placed in their arms.

If Snow had told them Olivia was in the wrong, they wouldn’t be coddling her right now, because their girl sure has a temper of her own. Deep down, sure, but she does have one. She seems to be the injured party in this mess though, and neither one of them thinks she’ll be any worse for the wear for some extra snuggles.

“Can you tell us what happened? Liv?” Emma asks, as she pulls her into her arms and sits down on the couch. Regina remains standing, next to them, her arms crossed and glaring at Snow. She doesn’t blame her, probably, but it never sits well with her to see their child in tears.

“She wanted me to give it to her,” Olivia says. She extends her little fist in front of her and opens it, and inside is what remains of the fairy pendant Olivia always wears around her neck. “I didn’t want to because Tink gave it to me, so she took it and stepped on it, and now it’s ruined,” she explains, and she starts to tear up again. She looks up at her mother, at Regina, with her huge blue eyes wide open and full of tears. “Momma, can you fix it?” she asks.

Regina kneels in front of them and covers her little hand with one of hers.

“Oh, darling,” she says. Her eyes lock with Emma’s, who nods, a tiny nod, but enough to show that yes, this is important enough, and Emma adds another hand on top of the pile, and then there’s warmth, and light lavender smoke, and then Olivia is left with her shiny pendant, glittering under the sunlight that’s streaming through the window.

Snow watches them and sighs, and she sits back down across from them, though the almost maniacal smile she had when she presented her project to them is gone.

“Do you want to stay and watch the pictures with us, Liv?” she asks. The little girl nods, and she settles between her moms scuttling all the way to the back of the couch, only sporadically paying attention to the pictures, far more concerned with making her pendant catch the light in just the right way.

“Oh, hey, look at this one,” Emma says, picking a quite frankly worrying shot of their little boy surrounded by no less than 6 young girls, all of whom are apparently trying to get his attention, and showing it to Regina. It’s disturbing, and Regina finds it equally so if the crease between her eyebrows is anything to go by.

“She looks like a princess!” Olivia intervenes. She slams her index finger in the middle of the picture, and yeah, that girl looks particularly princess-y, with the capped sleeves and the extra full skirt. It’s a dress fitting for an 18 year old girl on prom night, and she looks lovely.

“Mhm,” Regina says. “I used to have a dress like that.”

And Emma smiles, because the thought of her partner as a teenager in something pastel and puffy is too good to be true.

Until Snow speaks.

“I loved that dress,” Snow says, her voice a little too high and dreamy, and of course. Of course.

“Oh, I know,” Regina says, an edge to her voice. Not bitter, exactly. Not even hurt. Just… edgy.

Emma rolls her eyes at herself and her wonderful powers of description, but she pays closer attention to Regina, and seeing whatever it was that colored her words pass as quickly as it appeared, she lets it go.

“Can I have a dress like this?” Olivia asks.

“Of course you can,” Regina tells her, her voice warm, because when it comes down to it, there’s very few things Regina won’t let their daughter have.

“Do you want to play catch with Neal and David?” Emma asks the little girl, who grimaces and shakes her head.

“Neal can’t catch,” she says.

“Well maybe you can catch and he can throw,” Emma argues, and Olivia gives her a look that is so pure Regina she has to bite the inside of her lip not to burst out laughing. Yeah, Neal can’t throw either.

Olivia sighs and climbs out of the couch anyway, kisses both her moms, and Snow too, and leaves for the backyard, and they can hear her and Neal talking, and then there’s something about a baseball up in a tree and everyone knows the kids won’t be back down for a while, so David comes back inside, takes a look at Snow, who is again organizing her neat piles on the coffee table and wisely decides to go for takeout, ignoring his oldest child’s pleas to take her with him.

“Oh, sure, save yourself,” she mutters under her breath as she hears him start the truck in the driveway. It’s loud and not exactly eco-friendly. While it ran smoothly for 28 years, the last few haven’t been kind on it.

“Why is he still driving that thing anyway?” she asks, getting a murderous look from Snow.

“Don’t,” her mother says. “Just don’t.”

“Wow, alright.”

Regina is staring at one of the prints with a faraway look on her face, but she shakes it off when she notices Emma looking, offering her a small smile. It’s nothing, the smile says, which means it’s definitely something and she makes a note to ask about it later, when there’s less of an audience. She probably won’t get an answer, but she’ll ask anyway.

After about 45 minutes, when Snow has finally selected the pictures worth using for her scrapbook, the ones that are going on her mantle, the ones for the family album, she finally decides she’s done, and they can all move on. Yay.

She ungrounds Ruthie and sends her outside to play with the other kids.

“Just for 10 minutes,” she warns. “Daddy will be here soon with dinner.”

But the kid seems to not hear her at all and speeds past her to the backyard, and Snow sighs dejectedly.

Neal is a couple of wings short of an angel, and Emma is, well, not likely to spill food at the table or throw temper tantrums in the middle of the produce aisle of the grocery store, and while her parents shy away from using the term demon child, Emma has no such reservations.

Ruth Nolan is a little shit, a bully, and used to get her way, and Snow is out of her depth in how to handle a child that doesn’t want to be handled at all. Especially after Neal, who is the easiest child to be around, but who, contrary to all expectations has a steel spine and doesn’t let his little sister get away with anything. The poor boy often gets caught between Ruthie and Olivia’s fights, and doesn’t usually side with his sister, but they’ll be fine in the backyard until David gets home with dinner.

Inside, Emma and Snow have finished setting the table. Four adults (five, if you count Henry, which his moms reluctantly do though they still consider him their child), and three small children, 2 of them still on booster seats. Snow’s dining room sits 10, and it’s often crowded but she loves it. It’s something she’s confessed she never thought she’d get to have, and Emma knows exactly how that feels, even if it is more than slightly overwhelming at times, even after all these years.

Snow goes to watch the kids play. Neal and Olivia will come in when called but Ruth and the tree fort will not part ways so easily. Right now, they’re all happy and Snow loves to watch them when they’re all together and laughing.

Regina gets a text from Henry, letting them know he’ll be in time for dinner, and they settle on the couch to wait for him, Emma with her feet under her thighs and Regina’s head against her chest. She takes a photograph, a random one of a bunch of kids from Henry’s class and taps it against her leg.

“They’re still babies,” she says.

“Sure didn’t seem that way when I was that age,” Emma counters, and it sure didn’t seem like she had her whole life ahead of her when she was 17. “I’d already been in and out of juvie. Already had Henry.” She takes the picture from Regina and flicks it towards the coffee table. “You were already married.”

Regina nods. This is what that look was about, earlier, and her silence tells Emma more than enough.

“I’m fine,” she says, but her hands find Emma’s across her stomach and squeeze.

“Of course you are,” Emma tells her, kissing her temple. Regina is always fine, even when maybe she shouldn’t be.

“Oh,” Snow says from behind them.

Emma doesn’t turn to face her and neither does Regina, and it’s Snow who has to walk around to face them. She doesn’t speak, but it’s obvious she wants to. Snow really doesn’t know when to let things go. It is what it is and all the words in the world aren’t going to change it. Regina will be the first to say so, content to leave the past where it belongs.

There are many things she has dealt with, many she is still dealing with, but this is one she refuses to even speak about, and Emma refuses to push her on it.  
Snow has no such qualms.

She begins to speak, but is interrupted by the loud noises of David’s car on the driveway, causing her to look away for a second, enough for Emma and Regina to untangle themselves and stand up.

They get the kids inside, and then there’s hand-washing to be done, and chicken to be cut up in small pieces, and pouring Regina’s special apple juice and they ignore Snow’s sad, sad looks. And then Henry is there.

Henry, who hugs his mothers and lets them cling a little too long, who holds his little sister and tickles her until she almost throws up, who carries all three kids into the living room and sets them on the couch to watch a movie while he sits down for dinner.

Regina fusses over him, asks him if he wants seconds, and really, the only thing she doesn’t do is cut up his chicken for him. Emma is no better, sitting next to him, hovering, looking at him and wondering how, when, who is this tall boy that supposedly came out of her, and is now hovering near 6 foot 1 and not done growing. The boy who has her chin and Regina’s smile and is 100% his own person.

“Hey, what’s up with Grandma?” he asks them when he’s helping them pick up the table.

“She’s fine,” Regina says, resting her hand against his back.

He doesn’t seem all that convinced but lets it go. Snow and Regina are friends, at the very least, family, really, and it’s been a long time since either of them tried to hurt the other intentionally. That doesn’t mean they can’t, on occasion, be a little too harsh, or a little too invasive, but they can usually manage to keep their relationship working.

Snow comes into the kitchen with Neal trailing after her. The little boy goes to Regina and wraps his arms around her waist.

“Can I go home with you?” he asks.

“Darling,” Regina hesitates. She looks at Snow, asking her silently. For all that they both adore him, neither Emma nor Regina would ever willingly usurp Snow’s authority over her own child.

Snow nods, though she’s still downcast.

“You can go back home with Emma,” Regina tells the boy. “I think I’m going to stay and have coffee with your mom, alright?”

“But Regina!”

“I’ll be home later sweetheart. We’ll have fun tomorrow.”

Neal goes to the living room, loudly informing the other kids about the impromptu sleepover. Emma goes to supervise, because while Ruthie is a momma’s girl and is in no way, shape or form interested in sleeping away from home at the moment, there’s no knowing what will set off one of her tantrums.

Whatever happens in the kitchen while she’s gone, Henry leaves with a smile on his face, but it does nothing to ease the anxiety building on the pit of her stomach.

Henry asks if he can drive, like he does every time they get in the car with him, and for once Emma agrees. She’s too nervous to sit behind the wheel anyway.

She sends the kids outside while she says goodbye to her parents. Neal doesn’t even need an overnight bag, he has everything he could possibly need over at their house, so he skips happily towards the car.

Regina sees them off.

“Are you sure about this?”

“I need to talk to Snow,” she says. “It’ll be fine.”

She kisses her, rests her forehead against hers and takes a deep breath, and somehow it doesn’t fill Emma with confidence.

But she needs to get the kids home, and she is obviously not wanted for the conversation that’s about to happen.

She should have stayed, shouldn’t have let Regina deal with whatever Snow wanted by herself. They’re good, mostly, have been in good terms for a long time really, even if Regina is still a little prickly at times and Snow’s tendency to either let go too easily of make a big deal of every little thing gets on everyone’s nerves, but Emma has a bad feeling about his. A really bad feeling.

Henry does a great job of keeping the kids entertained, and they end up watching another movie, one of the old Disney ones Tink keeps buying for Olivia, in the living room covered in a thin blanket, pop corn flying everywhere, giggling and sighing and slowly falling asleep.

Henry helps her get them upstairs. He gets Neal, the heavier child, because her son is taller and stronger than her, and Emma just can’t deal with that. Instead, she gets her little kid, her baby, who is still tiny and cuddly, and not too heavy that she can’t carry her up a flight of stairs.

They set them up in the guest room, with the bigger bed, and Emma moves Liv’s fairy night light and plugs it in, just in case they get up in the middle of the night. She brushes off the hair from Olivia’s forehead and drops a soft kiss there, and the girl curls up in her sleep, a little content sigh escaping her lips. She softly taps Neal’s belly, making the little boy curl up, a little comma on the bed, and she brushes a kiss against his forehead as well.

“Are you turning in?” she asks Henry, who’s hovering near the door.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m just going to hang out in my room,” he tells her, walking in that direction, hands in his pockets.

“Good night, Henry.”

“Night, Ma.”

And then she’s alone in the second floor corridor, and Regina still isn’t home, and there’s nothing for her to do but wait, and let’s face it, Emma sucks at waiting.

So she goes downstairs, she plays on her phone until the battery is about to die and she has to plug it in, and then she panics a little because she can’t find her charger until she finally locates it in a neat little basket, in the studio, next to the printer with all the other chargers and assorted cables, where Regina is always making her and Henry put all their stuff.

So she plugs it to the wall, and it’s so damn short, the cable, so she has to sit at a really awkward angle, her ass half off the couch, and her back is sort of pulling, and it’s sort of distracting her from feeling anxious about Regina not being home yet, because it’s going on 11 pm, and even Henry is asleep, she checked, when she was upstairs looking for the damn charger.

And she has to fight the urge to call Regina, because seriously, hovering has never worked out great for her, but really, what is she expecting? And now she’s pacing the hall in front of the door, because if she calls, when she calls, and Regina, if there’s any sign that Regina is a little bit not alright, not that she would say so, but Emma knows her well enough by now to know, just by the tone of her voice. If there’s a reason Emma needs to move, she’s ready to leave.

So, she’s about to call, to say, dammit Regina, are you ok? when the woman herself walks across the door.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” she says, and Emma rolls her eyes, the only response Regina will get because honestly, what else was she expecting?

“Did you walk here?” Emma questions. It’s so late, and she didn’t hear David’s truck outside, and if Regina had used… less conventional means of transportation, she would have appeared straight up in their bedroom, not outside the front door.

She nods.

 

“The children?”

“Asleep. I put the babies in the guestroom.”

The babies. Neal and Olivia, 6 and 5 years old, but still the babies, as much as Henry is still one of the children. Well, neither of them is in a hurry to let go.

“How did it go with Snow?” Emma asks.

Regina shrugs. It’s so incongruent, Regina, former queen, usually so composed, so put together, shrugging.

“She’s fine,” she casually says.

“Alright. Are you?”

She smiles, humorlessly and empty.

“I’m fine, Emma.”

Of course she is.


	2. Chapter 2

Emma watches her.

She gets ready, slips into bed, reads her book. 

And Emma keeps watching her.

She doesn’t say anything, which Regina greatly appreciates, but she watches intently, almost obsessively, like she’s waiting for Regina to fall apart. She won’t. If there’s anything Regina knows, it’s that this can’t break her. Shake her, yes, but not break her.

Snow had been her usual self. Wanting answers she couldn’t handle and for once Regina had been willing to give them to her. She had talked to her, honestly. Said more than she’d intended, laid herself bare, because she was tired of lying to her. Because ignoring the issue had only worked for so long, and then misdirection had become plain lying, and telling herself she was doing it for Snow’s own good was only going to get her so far.

She gives up pretending to read and closes her book. 

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“I can feel you eyes burning into my skull, Emma. What?”

“You’re fine.”

“I am.”

“Alright.”

Emma pulls the covers under her chin, she jumps, sort of, she gives these little jumps as she settles in bed. It used to unnerve her, before, in the beginning. Now it only amuses her. Brings a smile to her face. Most of the time.

When she’s anxious, can’t sleep, Emma goes a little overboard with the fidgeting. 

“What?” Regina asks again.

“Nothing,” Emma says again.

Regina turns off her reading light, takes off the glasses she’s only recently relented and started to use, and sets them on the bedside table, on top of her closed book. She lowers herself on the bed, until her head is comfortable on the pillow and then she turns on her side. 

“Emma?”

“Mhm?” replies the other woman, who is definitely still awake, and definitely capable of more coherent responses.

“Thank you.”

Emma sighs, and extends a hand in front of her, fingers loose and apart. Regina reaches for her, her hand fitting perfectly. Neither of them are the cuddling type, as a rule, but they generally find comfort in each other’s presence. 

In the morning, when she wakes up, her arms hurt, and she’s awfully uncomfortable. Not a nightmare, she doesn’t have nightmares, not really. Not the kind that make one wake up screaming. Her subconscious is far crueler than that. She rubs her forearms, up and down, trying to return some feeling to them, clenches and unclenches her fists, until her hands are no longer locked stiff. 

Emma stirs next to her, blinks a few times. She opens her eyes fully and looks at her, smiles and goes back to sleep, and it’s enough to make Regina brave enough to get up. She lets Emma sleep, and carefully gets up from bed, wrapping a bathrobe over her pajamas.

Emma is still the sheriff, but the last few years have been quiet. Peaceful. Almost like it used to be, before she showed up in town, and there’s not much for her to do, on an average day. Today being her day off, Regina would like her to let her sleep for a little longer. Just because she can’t sleep like a normal person doesn’t mean she needs to make everyone around her miserable.

She sneaks into the guest bedroom, where Olivia is sleeping peacefully on her half of the bed, but Neal, just like his mother used to do when she was a little older than him, has kicked off all his covers and has turned in his sleep, his feet on his pillow and his head at the foot of the bed. She rights him up in bed and tucks them back up, and lets them sleep too.

Henry, on the other hand, is awake and already up, busy on his phone, making plans for the day.

“Will you go out again?” she asks him, arms crossed over her chest, fighting the urge to walk over to him and run her fingers through his too long hair. She took him to get his hair cut every 6 months, almost to the day, for most of his life. Things fell a little to the wayside, during that year after the curse was broken, and the year that followed, but afterwards, when they were back together, when things were almost back to normal, to a sense of normal anyway. He was always a tidy child. Until his senior year, when he decided he wanted it longer. He wanted to try something different, he said. He wanted to see if he could be different.

And he can’t, not really. He’s still her boy, her sweet, if quite grown boy.

“Hey Mom,” he smiles at her.

“Good morning darling. Do you have plans for the day?”

“We’re going to the beach again,” he says. “A bunch of us from school.” 

“Mh-hm.”

“Do you need me at home?” he asks, earnestly looking at her. 

And he would stay, if she asked him to. But she won’t.

“No, honey. You should have fun with your friends.”

He smiles again, brighter this time. It warms up her heart, to see him like that. It’s a surprise, every time, even though after almost 18 years of loving him it shouldn’t be, that just a smile from him can ease her soul.

She spots the packed bags in the corner. He’s all ready to go, though it’s barely the middle of August, and she can feel the seconds tick by. And yet, she won’t keep him here when he could be with his friends, happy and carefree.

“Do you need help with breakfast?” he asks her.

She shakes her head, but then his cellphone beeps again and he’s back to messaging his friends. She leaves him in his room, leaves him to his friends, and heads downstairs. 

She takes out all the ingredients for pancakes and lays them on the counter, and she busies herself with coffee and juice, cutting up fruit, just in case, and getting everything settled for when her family starts trickling downstairs.

Henry comes down first, already dressed for the day, a towel slung across his shoulder. 

“Is that all you’re taking?” she asks him. He nods distractedly and starts nibbling on peach slices.

“Pancakes! Neat!”

“Henry!” she admonishes.

“I’m too old for a knapsack,” he tries to argue.

“You’re not, however, too old for proper sun protection.”

“Mom!”

He has a healthy tan, from days like this, spent at the beach with his friends, or at the park goofing around. But his complexion doesn’t allow for slacking off when it comes to sunscreen.

She takes one of the bottles she keeps handy for occasions like this one and hands it to him.

“Mom, come on.”

“Put it in your pocket,” she says, “and don’t forget to reapply. All right darling?”

He sighs, defeated, and goes back to his fruit.

“Be thankful you have pockets, Henry,” she tells him and he shakes his head, but dutifully puts the small sunscreen bottle in his short pocket.

After about 5 minutes Olivia and Neal come down, still sleepy and mellow, and they seat in front of the counter, resting their heads on their crossed arms. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were brother and sister, the way they act.

She starts making the pancakes, whisking, measuring and adding, and the kids, the little kids, look at her fascinated. Henry used to do that, when he was little. It was just the two of them there, and as much as she cherishes those memories, she’s glad they’re not alone anymore, she’s glad there’s more.

Emma comes down, lured by the smell of pancakes and butter, most likely, but she’s smiling and happy, and Regina kisses her good morning over the stove, tasting toothpaste and her.

After breakfast, pancakes with bacon, because those are Emma’s favorites, with blueberries, because of Henry and Neal and with chocolate chips because Olivia is allergic, the kids are on clean up duty and she goes upstairs to get ready for the day. No longer the mayor, by choice, this time around, she has the luxury of time, for all the good it does her, when there are so many things to get done.

She’s still tired from a night without any rest, and she wants to lay down in bed and go back to sleep, but Emma burst into the room, noisily, her pajama shorts slung low on her hips and her midriff exposed. Emma, who wraps an arm around her waist and trails lazy kisses down her neck.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” Regina replies.

“I’m driving the munchkin back to Snow’s in a bit. I’ll call you later?”

“I really wish you’d stop calling him that.”

“What?”

Regina tries to give her a stern look, but Emma’s faux-innocent eyes are too funny.

“He’s a lovely child, you brother,” she tells her instead.

“I know.”

“Your sister, on the other hand.”

And really, she has no room to start talking about sisters and manners and being mean to other children, but they both agree that it’s better to limit the time Olivia and Ruth spend time together. 

“She’s a piece of work, alright.”

Olivia is the sweetest child. She has a temper, a terrible one at that, but it runs deep and it only comes out at the oddest of times. She’s their little social justice fighter, Emma says, and Regina is hard pressed to be at all bothered by that. There are far worse reasons to loose one’s temper than trying to right the world’s wrongs, even when your world is reduced to playground quarrels.

They try not to let her get away with too much, but they will let her argue her case as much as she wants to. They’ve tried to do better, this time around. Together. It’s significantly easier, in a way. 

“Olivia doesn’t want to go with you?” she asks.

Emma shakes her head.

“She wants to stay with you.”

It makes her smile. 

Olivia has a family. A brother who thinks she is the most precious being in the universe. Two parents who adore her. She has Snow and David and Neal and even that devil child Ruthie. Her life is full and joyous. She has friends, a class full of them. She is not a lonely child, but she would still rather spend a lovely summer day with her mother at home.  
Regina showers quickly, dresses carefully, and leaves her bedroom in search of her children.

Henry is downstairs, swinging his little sister by her ankles, and Regina’s chest is suddenly seized by panic. She feels a sudden pressure on the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades, the place where fear lives.

“Henry!” she calls. “Let your sister down right now!”

The girl giggles madly as she’s gently put back on the flour, and Neal, who was sitting on the floor next to them clamors for his turn, but one look at his mother makes Henry shake his head no.

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea, buddy,” he says.

Regina takes a deep breath, smiles at the children.

“Let’s make some cookies for Neal to take home, shall we?”

The smaller children race to the kitchen but her breath is not recovered enough that she can admonish them for it. Henry walks more slowly, and when he reaches her, he hugs her and sets his chin on top of her head.

“You can’t fix everything with baked goods,” he tells her.

“There’s nothing to fix here,” she counters.

He drops a kiss at the crown of her head.

“I’ll be home for lunch,” he says. “I love you!”

He leaves, then, walks out the front door, tall and awkward and so, so perfect.

Upstairs, Emma is taking forever in the shower, as she usually does when she has the time. In the kitchen, Olivia and Neal are waiting for her, still in their pajamas, ready for cookies and mischief.

They play with the flour and giggle all throughout, and she lets them cut the cookies in funny shapes, and when they’re ready for the oven (the oven that they’re not allowed to be near, ever) she sends them upstairs to find Emma.

“Tell her to help you get ready,” she instructs them, but they won’t, they’ll just keep playing around until she goes upstairs herself.

She pours herself a cup of coffee and waits. Sugar cookies are done very fast, and she turns off the oven and lets them cool off, following the kids upstairs, and finding them in Olivia’s room, playing some sort of complicated pretend game involving half a dozen stuffed animals and what looks like a spy kit Liv got for Christmas last year.

“Hi Momma!” she waves when Regina walks by, a tiny spyglass on her hand. Neal grins at her, a bright yellow feather boa bounding him to his chair.

Regina casually flicks her wrist and loosens the bindings, but otherwise lets them be; whatever they’re doing, it looks like they’re both having fun.

Inside their bedroom Emma is lying in bed, her tablet propped on her stomach, a sleepy look on her face.

“I thought you were taking Neal home,” Regina says, biting her lip to avoid the grin that’s threatening to break her face in two.

Emma, darling Emma, took a shower, started to get dressed, and apparently quit halfway through. She’s wearing a bra, underwear, and a white tank top, and seems absolutely unbothered by her state of undress.

She looks up from what is probably a rousing game of Candy Crush and sees Regina’s face.

“No pants is best pants,” she says, making the other woman grin, finally, and then laugh, and then she walks toward the bed, and her fingers trace the inner curve of Emma’s leg, of her thigh, and just when things are getting interesting, they hear a soft thud from down the hall, followed soon by soft cries. Regina almost runs out of the room, with Emma following after, but she has the sense to stop her.

“Pants,” she warns, making her turn around.

By the time she gets to the kids bedroom, Regina deeply regrets her decision to let the kids be. Liv lies on the floor, pinned down by Neal, in his chair, both unable to move. They’re unable to move, but seem uninjured. 

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Olivia starts to nod, but she bangs her head against Neal’s head.

“Help,” she pleads instead.

She is about to step in and do just that when Emma appears behind her. She wraps herself around her, her chin on her shoulder, grinning like a loon and keeping her in place.

“I need to capture this for posterity,” she says, raising her phone and snapping a picture.

They both step inside and help, then, they comfort kids and finally get them changed out of their pajamas. By the time they’re done, it’s near 11 in the morning, and almost half the day is gone. Olivia decides, at the last minute, that she wants to go drop Neal off as well, and won’t Regina go with them too?

Regina really, really doesn’t want too, but none of her reasons are good enough to disappoint her child, so she climbs in the passenger seat of the SUV Emma drives now.

She straps Neal in the back as Emma puts Olivia in the booster seat she resents so much, and then climbs in the passenger seat. It’s a rather tall car, and a bit of an effort, every time she has to get in, but Emma loves it. Of course, she doesn’t have the greatest taste in cars but even Regina will accept that this is a step up, several steps up, from her old bug.

Emma had loved that car, and it was a sign of her commitment to their family when she showed up one day sans bug and with an SUV instead.

“It’s a good family car,” she’d said, shuffling her feet and not quite looking at Regina, and that was probably the moment when she knew, without a doubt, that Emma was all in.

She texts Snow on the way, so when they get there, she’s waiting on the front porch, Ruth tightly clasping her hand. The girl looks happier than she did yesterday. Time alone with her parents has probably curbed some of her nastier character traits. For the moment, at least. 

She reminds her so much of Snow as a young child, and while there’s none of the hatred, none of the resentment that marked their every interaction, Regina can’t say she’s close to her.

Ruth was born wailing and she didn’t stop until she turned about 3 years old or so, and her poor parents, for even Regina with her sometimes twisted sense of humor wasn’t mean enough to think it funny, didn’t have a good night sleep in all that time. Poor Neal, barely 18 months older than his baby sister, was barely walking on his own when she was born, and his parents had only enough energy to keep him fed and clean.

So one night Emma had returned from visiting her parents with Neal on her hip, and a baby bag over her shoulder.

“She just won’t stop,” she’d said. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Regina, who was spoon feeding their six month old her mashed potatoes, had raised an eyebrow at her and looked at the baby on her hip. 

“I couldn’t leave him there,” Emma had explained.

They get the kids out of the car. Regina carries Neal and he rests his head on her shoulder and murmurs softly. Across the car, Emma is carrying both Olivia and the Tupperware full of cookies, and they walk up the path to Snow’s house, together.

Snow smiles at them, slightly strained but honest, as she takes Neal from Regina’s arms.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the cookies and handing them to Ruth. She gently nudges the girl, who smiles at them and thanks them as well. 

“Will you stay a while?”

Emma tenses, her arms a little more firm around their daughter.

“Thank you, but no,” Regina says. She looks at the boy in her arms instead of meeting her eyes. “We have a few things to finish around the house,” she adds.

“We should go,” Emma says.

It’s awkward, the entire affair is awkward and uncomfortable, and this is precisely what Regina didn’t want. They were fine, before, they hadn’t quite reached an understanding, but things were stable, almost normal between them, and Snow’s own perverse curiosity had ruined everything. But it’s done, now.

Olivia hugs and kisses everyone goodbye and she skips back to the car, followed at a more leisurely pace by her mothers, who don’t want to linger.

When Emma pulls out of the driveway, Regina sees Snow wave at them, and while she should return the gesture, she’s too tired to do so.


	3. Chapter 3

Henry texted, letting them know he wasn’t going to be home for lunch, and while Regina was clearly disappointed, she was also understanding.

“He wants to be with his friends,” she says as she slices tomatoes. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what we wanted for him, isn’t it?”

Emma nods, because clearly she isn’t handling it as well as her partner, if the mistiness she feels around her eyes is any indication.

“Emma?”

“It’s fine. I just can’t believe it’s only a few more days and he’ll be… not here.”

Emma missed the first 10 years of his life. She came to terms with that a long time ago, before she even had the chance to be in his life again, but the thought of missing even more, of Henry being in a different city, in a different state, away where she can’t get to him should anything happen, well, it’s nerve wrecking.

Regina’s hand tightens around the knife, just for a second, but Emma sees, and she knows that she’s not the only one who is not looking forward to the day Henry no longer sleeps under their roof.

She walks to Regina and wraps herself around her, resting her chin on her shoulder. They don’t say anything, but Regina sets down the knife and covers Emma’s hands with her own. They don’t need words to know what the other is thinking.

Olivia finds them like that and she joins their hug. Unlike pretty much everyone else in their lives, Liv has only ever known them to be together and in love. Even Henry sometimes looks at them like he can’t quite figure out how they all ended up here.

Emma lifts Liv and sets her on her hip.

“At least this one is staying for a while,” she says, squeezing the kid.

Regina smiles and goes back to slicing the vegetables for salad. Liv, being a big fan of everything healthy, grabs a tomato slice and sticks in her mouth, whole.

“Olivia!” Regina scolds her, but she can’t keep the smile out of her face.

It’s good to see her life this, because after last night Emma was sure her partner was going to be, at the very best, an emotional wreck. They still haven’t talked about what happened, and what Snow and Regina talked about, but Emma knows that they will, soon. Regina just needs time to process.

There’s probably going to be a lot of cleaning and baking today, as there usually is when Regina is trying to work through things. It’s not avoidance, exactly. So far, Emma’s figured that keeping her hands busy helps her think, or not think, about stuff. Which, honestly, she can definitely relate to.

In any case, Regina’s inclination towards wallowing has seriously decreased in the last few years, and Emma is happy to see that whatever happened last night won’t change that.

Olivia keeps stealing lettuce leaves and cucumber slices under her moms’ noses, and they both let her. Emma because she frankly doesn’t care, and good for her, eating her veggies, and Regina because apparently she has gone soft with age and contentment.

Emma tries to steal a lettuce leaf but Regina swats her hand away.

“Hey!” she says.

“What?”

“You let her,” Emma says, nodding towards their daughter.

“So?”

Emma doesn’t pout, but only because she knows the other woman will just laugh at her if she does.

After lunch, they take Olivia out for ice-cream, the tree of them walking hand in hand, with her skipping in between them, hanging from her mothers’ hands.

“I’m going to get chocolate,” she says.

“That sounds delicious,” Regina says, looking down at the little girl.

“What are you getting, Mommy?” she asks her.

“Chocolate as well,” she smiles.

“Mama?”

“Me too, kid.”

Olivia beams, and the skipping intensifies. By the time they make it to the ice-parlor, she’s almost vibrating with excitement, and they let her make their order. One of the dwarfs operates the place now. She always forgets his name, but he’s incredibly cheerful and all the kids, Olivia included, love him.

“Thank you!” she says as she’s given her cone. A single scoop, in spite of her protests. She hasn’t yet mastered the art of the double scoop and even just one is a serious threat to the lovely outfit she’s wearing today.

They walk a little further to the park and sit in a bench, all three of them licking their ice cream. Emma is done before them, and Regina gives her the rest of hers.

“Are you sure?” she asks, because Regina has a sweet tooth, and it’s very unlike her to give up her ice-cream.

“I’m not hungry,” she says, looking off to the side. Emma follows her eyes and understands what the sudden lack of appetite came from.

Neal is running toward them, but Regina is looking past him and at Snow, who is following behind, Ruth hoisted up on her hip.

Olivia jumps down from the bench, handing Emma her ice-cream cone and running to meet Neal halfway.

“I told her to stay away,” Regina mutters.

Emma’s hands are full of ice-cream, but she calls Regina’s name anyway.

“Go home,” she says. “I’ll stay with the kid, go home. We’ll be back in an hour. Alright?”

Regina nods, relieved, and she kisses Emma’s mouth before she walks past her. They both taste like chocolate.

She picks up Liv and kisses her cheek, and whispers something in the little girl’s ear that makes her giggle. Then she kisses the top of Neal’s head and turns around, not even bothering to say hi to Snow, whose face falls when she sees Regina walk away.

She stops next to the kids, putting Ruthie down and handing Neal his bag, from where the little boy immediately begins taking out the handcrafted set of wooden animals that are his favorite toy. Then Snow comes to Emma’s bench and she sits down where Regina was not so long ago.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asks tiredly. Snow looks surprised for half a second, before she smiles.

“Where did Regina go?” she asks instead of offering any sort of explanation.

“She needed to go home,” Emma tells her, not believing her casualness for a second.

Snow’s lips purse.

They spend about ten minutes in uncomfortable silence before Snow speaks again.

“I’m sorry, about last night.”

“About listening in on a private conversation? Or whatever happened between you and Regina after?”

“I needed to understand,” Snow tries to explain. Her hands are still on her lap and she’s looking away. She knows damn well she’s in the wrong here.

“Did you think about what she needed?”

Snow doesn’t answer, she continues to watch the kids playing with Neal’s wooden animals.

“Did you?” Emma insists. “Of course you didn’t.”

“Emma, that’s hardly fair.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me about fair, Snow,” Emma says sharply. “Okay, you needed to understand, you needed to poke at Regina’s demons-”

Snow starts to talk but Emma cuts her off.

“What about today? She asked you to stay away didn’t she? Did she ask you for time?”

Snow nods.

Regina had asked, and her mother had ignored her because it wasn’t convenient to her.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” she tries to modulate her voice, to keep it low enough so that the children won’t hear but they can probably feel the tension anyway.

“I can take my children to the park,” Snow says, looking mildly offended.

“And did you know we were going to be here? Did she tell you we were bringing Olivia after lunch?”

Snow shakes her head, but she doesn’t deny it.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I wanted to apologize!” she says sharply, looking straight at her for the first time in the conversation. “I just wanted to apologize,” she adds softly.

 “Well you don’t get to, alright? This isn’t, it’s not like that, Snow.”

Emma sighs and runs a hand through her hair. How is it, exactly? Regina won’t tell her what happened, and she can respect that, but she sure as hell would like to know. Snow seems to be under the impression she knows, and that puts her in the awkward position of trying to mediate when she only has a faint idea of what the conflict is.

She stands up and walks to where the kids are playing, sitting down with them and letting them use her legs as roads for their animals. Ruthie surprises her by cuddling up to her, and Emma slips her arms around the little girl. She adores her, of course she does, she’s just so difficult sometimes and it irks her that her parents do nothing about her behavior.

Ruthie loses interest in the others’ game pretty quickly and instead lays her head against Emma’s chest, playing with her hair until she falls asleep and Emma has to take her back to their mother.

“I think she’s a little warm,” she tells Snow, who cradles the child like she is much younger than five years old. She kisses her forehead and frowns.

“I should take them home,” she says. She stands up and adjusts Ruthie against her.

After her mother is gone with the kids, it’s just her and Olivia, and her daughter wants to go to the beach.

“Just for a little while,” she pleads, and Emma agrees.

Olivia is not spoiled, not really, but both Emma and Regina are inclined to indulge her, and now, with Henry’s impending depart, they cling to the fact Liv is still little enough to both need them and want them by her side most of the time. She’s been especially clingy herself, since she finally understood just what “leaving for college” really means, and her moms see no harm in being extra attentive to her.

Unlike the rest of her family, Liv doesn’t know much about loss, or sadness, or even discontent, beyond the normal childhood drama. This will be the first time in her short live that she faces a loss that can’t be soothed by a hug and an extra bedtime story.

They walk hand in hand, Olivia chattering and telling Emma all about her plans for school in a few weeks. She’s starting kindergarten this year, and is so excited about it, so excited about going to school with Neal, the very same school Henry just graduated from. She’s not nervous at all, not scared in the least. Or if she is, she’s keeping it well hidden. She’s so much like Regina that way.

“Can we get my uniform today?” she asks.

“Not to day, Liv. We should head home anyway. I bet Henry is back by now.”

Olivia starts pulling on her arm for her to hurry, and Emma ends with her jeans covered in sand after they take a fall. Liv laughs until she gets sand in her mouth and then “needs” to be carried the rest of the way home.

“This was way easier when you were just 10 pounds, kid,” Emma mutters, making her way up Mifflin St. with Olivia’s legs locked around her monkey style.

“I’m a big kid now,” the little girl says with absolute conviction.

“Do you want to walk then?”

Liv shakes her head and lays her head on Emma’s shoulder.

She may complain and she may grumble, but Emma loves every second of it. Henry’s childhood, well she has the memories of it, but it’s hardly the same as having the warm and solid weight of this little girl resting against her. Even if her arms feel like lead when they finally make it home.

Liv runs up the stairs to go to the bathroom, and Emma rubs her forearms as she walks into the kitchen for a glass of water, and sees Henry on the kitchen counter, happily devouring a muffin.

“Hey kid,” she says, to which he merely rolls his eyes.

“I have a name, you know,” he says, a smile on his lips.

“No, you don’t,” Emma counters.

“Whatever,” he laughs. “Mom made muffins,” he adds, handing her one.

“Where is your mother?”

“She said she had a headache,” he tells her, looking up, as if he could see through the ceiling and frowning.

“I’ll go check on her,” she says.

She walks out of the kitchen, taking her time and enjoying the muffin Regina made. It’s still a little warm, and it has a hint of cinnamon and something orange-y. Regina stress-bakes, and she cleans, and she remakes the beds until their home looks like something out of a catalogue. When she’s nervous or anxious she needs to have everything around her be perfect, which is weird and unsettling, because unlike her, Emma has always been more of a “the outside resembles the inside” kind of person, and the more stressed she is, the more the space around her turns to chaos.

She climbs up the stairs and takes a deep breath on the landing. Inside their bedroom, Olivia is standing next to their bed, a blanket clutched in her arms.

“I think Mommy’s cold,” she says.

“Oh, Liv,” Emma sighs, scooping up her daughter again, ignoring the twinge at her shoulders.

She takes the little girl downstairs, to the kitchen, and leaves her in her older brother’s capable hands.

When she goes back upstairs she finds Regina fast asleep, curled up on top of the bed, exactly in the middle. Even when she sleeps she’s precise.

“Regina,” she tells her, softly shaking her shoulder. “Regina,” she repeats, speaking her name softly and gently, not wanting to startle her. For her to have fallen asleep in the middle of the day, she’s probably feeling like crap, and Emma’s first instinct would be to let her sleep. She has to make sure she’s alright though, that this is nothing more than a stress headache, which will probably work itself out of her system in a few hours.

She opens her eyes and tenses for a fraction of a second before her hand sneaks around Emma’s wrists.

“Hey,” she says, not opening her eyes.

“Are you alright?” Emma asks her.

Regina nods, but the tightness around her eyes tells a different story.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Yeah, I know that song,” Emma says under her breath. She runs a hand through Regina’s dark hair, gently combing out the knots. “Sleep,” she says, bending down and kissing Regina’s forehead. It’s cool and dry, so she’s not very worried, but she still wished they were all downstairs together, as a family, taking advantage of the little time they have left with their son as a permanent resident of their home.

Regina pulls at Emma’s arm, until it’s near enough for her to kiss the back of her hand.

“Rest,” Emma whispers to her, leaving her in the bed as she goes back downstairs.

The kids are sitting in the living room, playing with Liv’s legos. She’s just recently graduated to the tiny ones, the ones that are murder on Emma’s feet when she gets up in the middle of the night and she steps on the damn thing. She has so many too, since Henry gave her his, and they keep finding the things everywhere. Regina collects them all every few weeks and sorts them by size and color, and as much as she mocks her, Emma thinks it’s a great way to keep the plastic blocks contained.

“What are you doing guys?”

Henry has been enlisted to build a barn, and Liv is building her own set of animals (just like Neal’s, she says), with varying degrees of success.

“Mama look!” she squeals, and Emma ventures a guess that the… thing Liv is showing her is a cow.

It’s not, and the girl is mildly offended.

“Come on,” Emma says suddenly. “We’re going for groceries.”

Regina needs alone time, even if it’s just to sleep off the headache, and while Emma is usually not in charge of the food, she’s pretty certain she can manage a trip to the store without any major incidents.

Neither one of her children is supportive of her plan, but she manages to bribe Henry with the chance to drive, again, and distracts Liv enough that she forgets about asking for more ice cream.

There’s no list, this wasn’t planned in advance, and it’s not something she ever needs to do because Regina runs a tight, highly organized ship. Regina goes to the grocery store on Wednesdays. There’s something reassuring in knowing they’ll never go hungry and while it comes from a different place, while Regina’s fears are both equally sad but so completely divergent from Emma’s, they both appreciate a fully stocked pantry.

Emma sometimes still craves comfort food, noodles and mac and cheese, things so simple and yet so immensely satisfying, and today seems like a good day to indulge.

They take a long time, Emma pushes the cart while Henry and Olivia walk up and down each aisle and try to talk her into buying at least one ridiculous thing every 5 minutes. Not what she thought she’d be doing on her day off, but it’s ok, nearly perfect, actually, and it would be if Regina was beside her.

They buy way too much stuff, some things Emma’s sure she wouldn’t have agreed to if she wasn’t so wildly distracted by thoughts of Regina waking up alone back at the house. She should have left a note, she thinks, and the only thing she can do to remedy it is send her a text, which she hopes won’t wake the other woman up.

“Should we get vegetables?” Henry asks her when they’re at the checkout line. He looks dubiously at their cart full of not exactly nutritional food, and Emma shrugs. This wasn’t about the food, really. This was mostly about getting the kids out of the house and making sure Regina had space to sort through whatever she needs to sort through.

Emma doesn’t doubt Regina will talk to her when she’s ready, because this is affecting their family, and while she won’t open herself up for her own peace of mind, she’s always been very vocal about making sure neither her issues nor Emma’s affect the family they’ve built.

Liv is tired and wants to go home, and Henry, despite having devoured half a tray of muffins back at the house, says he’s hungry.

Emma parks the car in the driveway and the kids help her get the food inside, and they’re all merrily putting away the groceries when Regina comes downstairs.

She’s slept the afternoon away and she still looks tired, but her smile is huge and warm when she sees Henry and Olivia, and she kisses Emma on her way to help Liv reach the high shelves.

“Chocolate covered Oreos? Really?” she asks, though she’s not really expecting an answer, she merely sighs and offers Emma a soft smile and a shake of the head.

“They’re delicious,” Emma offers back. “You like them,” she adds lowly.

Regina smiles again, helps Liv stand down on her own feet and laughs softly.

“Thank you, darling,” she says, taking Emma’s hand and intertwining their fingers together.

Emma pulls her closer and kisses her, with intent this time, and then Regina leans against her, her head on Emma’s shoulder.

“Did you take something?” she asks her, and Regina shakes her head no.

“It’s not that kind of headache,” she tells her. Her breath against Emma’s collarbone tickles and she seems way more together than when she saw her last.

“Thank you,” Regina says again, softly, low enough that their kids won’t hear.


	4. Chapter 4

Henry leaves at about seven.

“We’re going to Granny’s,” he tells them. She kisses them goodbye, spins Olivia around the living room and leaves to meet his friends at the diner.

“We probably won’t even notice he’s gone,” Emma says, “he’s hardly here as it is.”

Nonsense, of course, they will both miss him dearly.

Olivia is quick to take advantage of the situation, and she asks them to watch Lilo and Stitch after dinner, which they do, because she’s seen it so many times she knows the words by heart, and she’ll probably fall asleep right before the end.

She nestles between her moms, Emma on her phone and Regina with her book, and they hear her murmur the lines along with the characters for the first half of the movie, after that, there’s silence and by the time the credits start rolling, Emma carries her up the stairs and tucks her into bed.

Regina turns off the TV and pours them both a glass of wine. Her headache is not completely gone, so she dims the lights and sits down on her side of the couch, waiting for Emma to join her.

“I’m sorry about your day off,” she says, when the other woman makes it down. She hands her the wine, but instead of taking her place at the other side of the couch, as they do almost every night, Emma sits on the coffee table, directly in front of her.

“You know I don’t care about that.”

Emma looks sad and tired, and it’s because of her, because of Regina’s inability to actually be as fine as she claims to be. It must show on her face, how much that disturbs her, because Emma sets down her glass and she places her hands on Regina’s knees.

“Hey, Regina, it’s fine. You needed time, and I could give it to you.”

“I shouldn’t need time,” she says sharply.

She’s not even mad at Snow, who just can’t let things go, who needed the answers Regina had been holding back for decades. Mostly, she’s just mad at herself, angry that she can still feel like the innocent girl she’d been all these years ago.

Emma squeezes her knees and then stands up, she takes Regina’s wine and her own and takes them to the kitchen, and then she comes back. Regina was kind of hoping Emma would head off to bed and leave her to wallow down here by herself, but that’s not her way, she comes back and she takes Regina’s hand, pulling her up to her feet.

“Come on,” she says. “We should go to bed.”

Regina gets ready in silence, she puts on the soft blue pajamas, the ones that match Emma’s, and she slips into bed while Emma’s still in the bathroom. No book tonight, she really just want the day to be over and feels no need to prolong it any further.

She closes her eyes when she hears Emma step closer, not exactly ignoring her but not acknowledging her either, and Emma walks around the bed in silence, bounces a little in the bed and curls up around the bedspread that pulled tightly between her hands. Emma’s moods are the easiest to read late at night, when it’s just the two of them under the cover of darkness.

She wants to speak, the tense set of her mouth is the precursor to one of those late night confessions that characterized the earliest stages of their relationship.

“I’ll never ask you to marry me,” Emma says. She holds herself away from Regina, but even in the dark, Regina can tell the other woman is looking straight at her and noticing how her body has tensed up.

“I’ll never ask for something you can’t give. I won’t even ask you to put into words why we can’t ever get married, or why your muscles ache after you have a nightmare, or why you can’t let me in.”

Emma chuckles, suddenly, and one of her hands untangles itself long enough for her to brush off the hair that’s fallen in front of her face.

“I know, alright? I know Regina, and it’s…” she chuckles again. “It’s _fine_.”

“Emma,” she begins, but she doesn’t know what she wants to say. She wants to stop her, she wants to start spilling out all the things she’s kept quiet, she wants to pull Emma to her and beg for forgiveness, beg her to understand. She does nothing, she lets her indecision trail off and linger between them.

“I need you to know that you don’t owe me your secrets, Regina. I know you, and I believe in you.”

“Emma,” Regina begins again, because there’s something she can do, something she can offer back to the woman who loves her so much she’s asking for nothing, but Emma interrupts her.

“No, hold on, let me finish, alright?”

Regina nods, and her hand reaches halfway in between them. An invitation, maybe, or just the desire to be closer to Emma.

“I’m not going to be another person who takes from you,” Emma says firmly. “But anything you’re willing to give, anything you say, Regina, I couldn’t possibly love you more. And I don’t think there’s anything that will make me love you less.”

Her hand reaches for Regina’s, and they lay there together, connected only by the merest of touches, until Regina speaks.

“If I told you,” she says. “If I told you then it would be here. Between us. And I don’t want anything between the two of us.”

She scoots closer to Emma and kisses her, softly but determinately. She tries to let her know all the things she’s unable to vocalize, needing for the other woman to know that despite her lack of words, she is thankful and humbled, that she wants her as much as Emma wants her.

They kiss for a long time and let the heat between them simmer, their touches are certain and full of promise, but they go slow. Emma opens Regina’s pajama shirt, button by button, in between kisses, almost agonizingly slowly, her fingers caressing every bit of skin she uncovers, until it’s off and her torso is completely bared.

She trails kisses up her sternum and lingers on the hollow of her throat. Regina’s hands circle Emma’s waist, slipping under her lose cotton shorts and pulling them down, fingers digging into her hips. Soon enough, their clothes are completely off and their hands wander each other’s body.

“Door,” Emma says. She gently pushes Regina off and stands up, walks towards their bedroom door and locks it. All the lights are off, but her naked back shines under the moonlight. Regina leans on her elbows and watches as she walks back to the bed.

“Come here,” she says, and Emma does, a smirk on her face.

She straddles Regina, one leg on each side, and rolls her hips, making her gasp. Her hands grasp Regina’s shoulders and she lowers her head until her lips are no more than a hair’s width from hers. Emma catches her lower lip between her teeth and pulls, just hard enough that the sting is incredibly satisfying. They move together, with the ease of two people who know what the other wants, until they’re both too tired to keep going.

Regina rests her head on Emma’s chest, listening as her heartbeat returns to its normal rhythm, and Emma moves her hand to Regina’s upper back, kneading at the muscles.

They’re almost asleep when Regina speaks again.

“What did Snow say, at the park?”

“She said,” Emma hesitates. “She wanted to apologize.”

Regina closes her eyes for a second, and she imagines not the grown woman she saw earlier today, but the child she lived with all those years ago, repentant and upset about whatever she had done wrong. It’s terribly unfair, to hold the past, the distant past, against her. Regina can’t stop.

“I know she’s sorry,” Regina admits, “but I also know that she thinks apologizing is enough, and it’s not. Emma, it’s not enough.”

She’s not bitter anymore, there’s not an undercurrent of resentment and she’s not thirsty for revenge. Regina has moved on from that, because she knows she was wrong, absolutely wrong. Snow was someone she could hate, was someone she could blame, and she nurtured her hatred for years, because hating Snow was safe. She was a powerless child, and Regina could always pretend she had the upper hand, and while she has forgiven, she can’t quite forget.

“I hurt her,” she says, and it’s the beginning of a thought, the first step in a path she doesn’t want to take. “Last night, I told her everything she wanted to know, because I _wanted_ to hurt her, because I wanted her to know.”

Emma continues to rub circles around her upper back, where the tension makes her muscles knot. She doesn’t stop, she doesn’t vary the pattern, steady and stalwart, and maybe even stubborn. She didn’t ask for an explanation, but Regina finds the words flowing out anyway.

“I was married for ten years, and every single day I felt more and more of my humanity slip from my grasp, Emma, I felt like I was being chipped away, piece by piece, until all I had was my anger. And that’s on me.”

Emma knows better than to protest, they’ve been over this before. Without Rumplestiltskin, without the King, without her mother, The Evil Queen wouldn’t have existed but every choice was her own.

She kisses Emma’s collarbone, the taste of her skin reminds her of where she is now, of who she’s with.

“I forgave her a long time ago,” she says, “but I think a part of me will always find new ways to hurt her, even when I hurt myself in the process.”

“Regina,” Emma says. “She wanted answers and you gave them to her. You can hardly blame yourself for that.”

“She wanted answer, yes, and I could have given them to her. But I was unnecessarily cruel. I enjoyed it, even as it was tearing me apart.”

Regina’s eyes sting, but she fights the urge to cry. She used her own suffering to bring about Snow’s, because she knew Snow loves her, and she knew she would take Regina’s pain and turn it into her own, but she won’t give in and cry. She swore to herself a long time she wouldn’t spill anymore tears over the King.

Snow had wanted to know everything, what he was like behind closed, why she never said anything, why she went almost 40 years without telling her a thing, when surely the truth would have been awful enough to hear, and isn’t that what Regina wanted? To hurt her?

And Regina had talked, she’d given her details she’d tried so hard to forget, told her everything and almost squirmed with glee when Snow had broken down in front of her. She’d delighted in breaking the pedestal the memory of the King was on, because the other choice was to remember helplessness and pain, and she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

“Is that why you don’t want to see her? Because you hurt her?”

Emma’s voice is soothing, even as she asks her impossible questions.

“Yes,” she says. “And because I let her see.”

She can’t face Snow, not now, and maybe not any time soon. Her intentions were to hurt, to lacerate and scar, but all she said was the truth, and every time she sees her, she’ll be confronted with the past.

“I need time,” she says. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it might numb them enough that Regina won’t feel the urge to run when she sees Snow the next. “Just a little more time.”

Emma’s hand stills on her back, but she doesn’t pull it away. Instead, her other arm surrounds Regina, and though the awkward position can’t possibly be comfortable, she holds her close and doesn’t let go until all her limbs go slack with sleep.

Regina can’t sleep. She’s tired and stated, but even the over emotional conversation she had with Emma weren’t enough for her to succumb to tiredness. Instead, she puts her pajamas back on and leaves Emma to her slumber.

Henry’s curfew is 1 am, and it’s half past midnight when Regina checks up on Olivia, and then goes downstairs, on somewhat shaky legs, and puts the kettle on for tea.

She rinses off the glasses from earlier and tidies up in the kitchen. She opens the fridge and contemplates what she’s going to make for lunch tomorrow, and whether or not she wants to take Emma and Henry to task for the unreasonable amounts of junk food they bought.

In the end, she takes the oreos Emma bought her and a glass of milk and sets them on the kitchen counter. She pours herself a cup of raspberry tea, and waits.

Henry is legally an adult, but the truth is he’s still a child. She knew it even before she was confronted with the harsh reality of her own adolescence.

He is leaving them. Not because he doesn’t need them, or because they’ve driven him away. He’s leaving them because he wants to walk his own path, because she got him to this point, she and Emma, and he’s secure enough in their love to walk further and further away and know they will always be waiting for him.

Like she is tonight, counting the minutes until it’s 1 and Henry is here, or until the time passes and he’s not, and she needs to go find him somewhere because he knows better than to break curfew, and he wouldn’t anyway, so if he’s not at home at the appropriate time something must have happened to him.

Regina might be slightly paranoid when it comes to her children’s safety.

She hears shuffling from the entrance hall, but not the sound of the door, and stands up to investigate.

“Babe, come back to bed,” Emma tells her from the foot of the stairs, her arms crossed and her toes peeking out from under the hem of her too large pants.

“I made tea,” Regina counters, knowing full well that Emma will wait up with her. Storybrooke is a peaceful town, for the most part, and at present Emma’s most exciting days consist of mediating old feuds, but Henry could still be in danger just from being a teenager who sometimes doesn’t know his own limits. Food poisoning, broken bones, sprained joints and colds that turned serious too fast, these are all things they’ve dealt with before, and that was when they were around him and paying attention. Now he’s off by himself, well, they are clinging to the little time they have left to truly look after him.

Regina places a steadying hand on the back of Emma’s back and guides her to the kitchen, where they sit across from each other and sip their tea until Henry’s key turns in the door and they hear him walking to the kitchen.

“Seriously, you guys, it’s not even 1 yet,” he complains, but her takes the milk and cookies and sits with them until he’s yawning and they send him up to bed.

“Leave it,” Emma tells her when she starts rinsing their things. “I’ll do it in the morning. Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

They climb up the stairs together, in silence, and get under the covers, facing each other.

“He’s a good kid,” Regina says.

Emma hums her agreement, but she’s already falling asleep again.

“I love you,” she mumbles, her eyes closed.

Regina takes her hand loosely on her own and closes her eyes, nothing keeping her from slumber this time. In the morning, her alarm clock wakes her and she doesn’t remember her dreams.

Emma sleepwalks through the early morning, having had a late night, but she makes sure to leave the kitchen clean after her hurried breakfast. She’s slightly more clingy this morning than usual, but leaves for work right on time, kissing her goodbye at the front door, Regina still in her pajamas.

Afterwards, she heads back upstairs to change and check on the children. Henry is still asleep, loose-limbed and peaceful, and she knows he doesn’t have plans for this morning so she lets him sleep for a little longer.

Regina has a fake degree in Political Science, but she’s never been to college, and Emma didn’t have the chance to attend, but they both have it pretty clear that it’s not all fun and games, and Henry will need to work hard to be successful, but he’s still their little boy, for a few more days at least, and neither of them feels the need to acquaint him with is sure to be a harrowing schedule and the challenge of providing his own meals, so on her way to her room, she starts planning a lavish breakfast to share with the kids.

Olivia is the same, sleeping until being woken up, but today Regina pushes open her daughter’s room to find her playing quietly on the carpet, so instead of heading to her bedroom and getting ready for the day, she sits down with her youngest child and helps her build little lego creatures.

Legos are her current favorite toy, and while Regina is not very fond of the little plastic bricks, she recognizes the sense of possibility and wonder. Olivia can build anything she wants, limited only by her imagination and the amount of bricks necessary.

Regina rests against Olivia’s unmade bed while the little girl happily continues to build something that resembles a bed but could be a giraffe or a truck, as one never knows with Liv and both she and Emma have mistaken her artistic renderings before.

She pulls the girl into her lap and kisses the crown of her head.

“Did you sleep well?”

The little girl nods, and cuddles up to her mother.

“Then why are you up so early, baby?”

She shrugs, and grasps Regina’s pajama shirt in her hand – she’s not exactly communicative first thing in the morning. Regina gently clasps open Liv’s other hand and finds that the lego brick she was holding has left red marks on her daughter’s hand.

“Oh, Liv,” she says. “Did you have a bad dream?”

She shrugs again, but wraps herself around Regina’s torso.

“I want to sleep in your bed now,” she says. “Please?”

Regina shouldn’t allow for this kind of behavior. She should either put the girl back to bed, her own bed, or she should take her downstairs and start their day together. Olivia is afraid of the dark, of the imaginary monsters under her bed, she’s afraid of drowning if someone isn’t holding her hand when they go swimming. Her fears are the same as any other child her age, and Regina is glad for it. Still, they are very real to her, and so Regina takes her in her arms and carries her to her bed.

Olivia is a little furnace and when she curls up against her side, Regina feels the heat coming off her so she throws the bedspread off and uses the soft green cotton sheet to cover the little girl.

“I like it here,” the little girl tells her sleepily. She’s beginning to drift off, her eyes flutter and her mouth goes slack, and Regina simply looks at her.

When she’s awake, Olivia could be a miniature Emma, with the same attitude and, to her dismay, the same speech pattern, even though everyone claims she has Regina’s smile. Asleep, with her features relaxed and her eyes closed, she looks like her birth mother. Like her birth mother looked like the last time Regina saw her. Peaceful.

She didn’t want the baby, she didn’t want much of anything in the end, except to be left alone, and it wasn’t a difficult decision, giving her a second chance. Not her decision, in the end, she’d been excluded from the entire process until it was time to put thought to action, and she still feels a flare of anger whenever she thinks about it.

The memories they gave her were much kinder than her original ones, and while she was still a woman with no family and no friends, the constant ache that had driven her to do so much damage was absent. They check on her, sometimes, Emma will make the drive to New York and she’ll sit in the little café in front of her building, and watch, and she seems to be doing fine.

Zelena hadn’t wanted to take the baby with her, and Regina will never be able to thank her enough. She doesn’t understand, will never understand, how she could look at this little girl and not want to cherish and protect her, not feel her entire soul consumed by love.

It hadn’t exactly been a choice, to take the baby and raise her as her own, a choice would imply that there was something else that could have been done.

After the birth, Zelena had refused to even look at the baby and the little girl had spent the first few hours of her life in a plastic bassinet in the hospital. Storybrooke General Hospital’s maternity ward was fully functional, but other than Olivia, who still didn’t have a name when Regina and Emma first saw her, was wriggling her fists and blankly staring at the ceiling, the only baby in the nursery.

Regina had known, immediately, what she had to do, what she wanted to do, but asking that of Emma, asking her to take on the responsibility of another child was not something she was willing to do when their relationship was so new. It wasn’t something she could impose on anyone, and it could have broken them up, it could have been the end of them.

But it wasn’t, and five years later here she was, snuggled in bed with her daughter, under sheets that still smelled like Emma’s shampoo.

“I love you,” she says softly, her hands pulling the little girl closer against her.

It was the first thing she ever told her, even when she didn’t quite believe her, because she needed to make up for those hours the baby had spent alone, because she wanted her to hear nothing but soft words and receive nothing but the gentlest of touches.

Olivia had been a small baby, tiny, almost, and Regina had picked her up and didn’t let go for hours. There was no paperwork, no forms to sign or interviews to sit through, The hospital had handed off her baby like she was not the most precious thing in the world, happy to be relieved of the burden of an unwanted baby. She’d picked a name on the spot, one that had always rolled easily of her tongue when she read Henry’s old storybooks. Emma had smiled next to her, one of her hands constantly on the baby, and the other clenching and unclenching with nerves.

“I love that name,” she’d said.

They took her home after that, put her in bed between them and neither of them could get any sleep that night. Olivia was an excellent sleeper, from the first day, but she didn’t like any of the first 3 brands of formula they bought and she was continuously crying to be picked up.

She continues to be fussy with her food and she doesn’t always stay focused for too long, but she remains an excellent sleeper so Regina covers tucks the sheets around her and gets up from bed.

She changes in the closet, the door half opened so she can listen for her, and goes to her desk to turn on the laptop. Technology isn’t one of her strong suits, but over the years she’s learned enough to stay on top of things. Mal, on the other hand, took to it very well, and she sends emails faster than Regina can answer them.

This morning alone she has sent two questions about zoning regulations, a long list of complains about the winter fair, and an invitation to dinner.

“I never should have retired,” Regina murmurs.

When Henry was little, he had a child sized desk next to Regina’s at her office, and he often spent hours “writing” memos and stamping them with her official seal. They’d had fun in that office, the two of them, and Regina very well could have done the same with Olivia, but after the course broke, the Mayor was no longer the utmost authority in town, and was held accountable. Not that it was bad, in itself, but the schedule wasn’t quite as flexible as before and Regina chose to step down. Elections followed, and then four years later they happened again, resulting in Maleficent sitting the mayoral seat.

Nobody quite knows how that happened, and she is definitely not qualified for the job, which is why Regina gets a lot of emails and almost as many phone calls.

At least before she was getting paid.

She explains about the zoning regulations, tells Mal to put her secretary in charge of the winter fair (having organized it for over 30 years, she is more than capable to do it again), and answers to the dinner invitation with a tentative yes, pending confirmation from Emma and Henry.

She then goes down to put on a new pot of coffee, to start whipping up eggs for the omelettes she’s going to make for Henry and Olivia, to put a load of laundry in the washing machine.

She seats down on the living room with her book, her phone close and ready for the texts Emma will start sending as soon as she starts getting bored at the station, until she hears Henry’s heavy steps down the stairs and Liv’s giggles upstairs.

There are hard days, and more than enough hurdles to get past, but she’s thankful. Her life is almost perfect.

 

[The End]

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the concept of F.I.N.E., which I first learned about from the ER fandom a thousand years ago.


End file.
